Complete Works of R S Surtees

by R S Surtees

Now Gameboy, seeing by the newly thrown out gravel the magnitude of the venture, thrusts down his hat firmly on his brow, while Hicks gets his chesnut well by the head, and hardening their hearts they clear it in stride, and the Damper takes soundings for the benefit of those who come after. What a splash he makes!

  And now the five-and-thirty years master of “haryers” without a subscription coming up, seeks to save the credit of his quivering-tailed grey by stopping to help the discontented Damper out of his difficulty, whose horse coming out on the wrong side affords them both a very fair excuse for shutting up shop.

  The rest of the detachment, unwilling to bathe, after craning at the cut, scuttle away by its side down to the wooden cattle-bridge below, which being crossed, the honourable obligationers and the take-care-of-their-neckers are again joined in common union. It is, however, no time to boast of individual feats, or to inquire for absent friends, for the hounds still press on, though the pace is not quite so severe as it was. They are on worse soil, and the scent does not serve them so well. It soon begins to fail, and at length is carried on upon the silent system, and looks very like failing altogether.

  Mr. Boggledike, who has been riding as cunning as any one, now shows to the front, watching the stooping pack with anxious eye, lest he should have to make a cast over fences that do not quite suit his convenience.

  “G — e — ntly, urryin’! gently!” cries he, seeing that a little precipitancy may carry them off the line. “Yon cur dog has chased the fox, and the hounds are puzzled at the point where he has left him.”

  “Ah, sarr, what the daval business have you out with a dog on such an occasion as this?” demands Dicky of an astonished drover who thought the road was as open to him as to Dicky.

  “O, sar! sar! you desarve to be put i’ the lock-up,” continues Dicky, as the pack now divide on the scent.

  “O, sar! sar! you should be chaasetised!” added he, shaking his whip at the drover, as he trotted on to the assistance of the pack.

  The melody of the majority however recalls the cur-ites, and saves Dicky from the meditated assault.

  While the brief check was going on, his lordship was eyeing Miss de Glancey, thinking of all the quiet captivating women he had ever seen, she was the most so. Her riding was perfection, and he couldn’t conceive how it was that he had ever entertained any objection to sports-women. It must have been from seeing some clumsy ones rolling about who couldn’t ride; and old Binks’s chance at that moment was not worth one farthing.

  “Where’s Pringle?” now asked his lordship, as the thought of Binks brought our hero to his recollection.

  “Down,” replied Miss de Glancey carelessly, pointing to the ground with her pretty amethyst-topped whip.

  “Down, is he!” smiled the Earl, adding half to himself and half to her, “thought he was a mull’.”

  Our friend indeed has come to grief. After pulling and hauling at his horse until he got him quite savage, the irritated animal, shaking his head as a terrier shakes a rat, ran blindfold into a bullfinch, shooting Billy into a newly-made manure-heap beyond. The last of the “harryer” men caught his horse, and not knowing who he belonged to, just threw the bridle-rein over the next gatepost, while D’Orsay Davis, who had had enough, and was glad of an excuse for stopping, pulls up to assist Billy out of his dirty dilemma.

  Augh, what a figure he was!

  But see! Mr. Boggledike is hitting off the scent, and the astonished drover is spurring on his pony to escape the chasetisement Dicky has promised him.

  At this critical moment, Miss de Glancey’s better genius whispered her to go home. She had availed herself of the short respite to take a sly peep at herself in a little pocket-mirror she carried in her saddle, and found she was quite as much heated as was becoming or as could be ventured upon without detriment to her dress. Moreover, she was not quite sure but that one of her frizettes was coming out.

  So now when the hounds break out in fresh melody, and the Flying Hatter and Gameboy Green are again elbowing to the front, she sits reining in her steed, evidently showing she is done.

  “Oh, come along!” exclaimed the Earl, looking back for her. “Oh, come along,” repeated he, waving her onward, as he held in his horse.

  There was no resisting the appeal, for it was clear he would come back for her if she did, so touching her horse with the whip, she is again cantering by his side.

  “I’d give the world to see you beat that impudent ugly hatter,” said he, now pointing Hicks out in the act of riding at a stiff newly-plashed fence before his hounds were half over.

  And his lordship spurred his horse as he spoke with a vigour that spoke the intensity of his feelings.

  The line of chase then lay along the swiftly flowing Arrow banks and across Oxley large pastures, parallel with the Downton bridle-road, along which Dicky and his followers now pounded; Dicky hugging himself with the idea that the fox was making for the main earths on Bringwood moor, to which he knew every yard of the country.

  And so the fox was going as straight and as hard as ever he could, but as ill luck would have it, young Mr. Nailor, the son of the owner of Oxley pastures, shot at a snipe at the west corner of the large pasture just as pug entered at the east, causing him to shift his line and thread Larchfield plantations instead of crossing the pasture, and popping down Tillington Dean as he intended.

  Dicky had heard the gun, and the short turn of the hounds now showing him what had happened, he availed himself of the superiority of a well-mounted nobleman’s huntsman in scarlet over a tweed-clad muffin-capped shooter, for exclaiming at the top of his voice as he cantered past, horn in hand,

  “O ye poachin’ davil, what business ‘ave ye there!”

  “O ye nasty sneakin’ snarin’ ticket-o’-leaver, go back to the place from whance you came!” leaving the poor shooter staring with astonishment.

  A twang of the horn now brings the hounds — who have been running with a flinging catching side-wind scent on to the line, and a full burst of melody greets the diminished field, as they strike it on the bright grass of the plantation.

  “For — rard! for — rard!” is the cry, though there isn’t a hound but what is getting on as best as he can.

  The merry music reanimates the party, and causes them to press on their horses with rather more freedom than past exertions warrant.

  Imperial John’s is the first to begin wheezing, but his Highness feeling him going covers a retreat of his hundred-and-fifty-guineas-worth, as he hopes he will be, under shelter of the plantation.

  * * * *

  “I think the ‘atter’s oss has about ‘ad enough,” now observes Dicky to his lordship, as he holds open the bridle-gate at the end of the plantation into the Benington Lane for his lordship and Miss de Glancey to pass.

  “Glad of it,” replied the Earl, thinking the Hatter would not be able to go home and boast how he had cut down the Tantivy men and hung them up to dry.

  “Old ‘ard, one moment!” now cries Dicky, raising his right hand as the Hatter comes blundering through the quickset fence into the hard lane, his horse nearly alighting on his nose.

  “Old ‘ard, please!” adds he, as the Hatter spurs among the road-stooping pack.

  “Hooick to Challenger! Hooick to Challenger!” now holloas Dicky, as Challenger, after sniffing up the grassy mound of the opposite hedge, proclaims that the fox is over; and Dicky getting his horse short by the head, slips behind the Hatter’s horse’s tail for his old familiar friend the gap in the corner, while the Hatter gathers his horse together to fulfil the honourable obligation of going with the hounds.

  “C — u — r — m up!” cries he, with an obligato accompaniment of the spur rowels, which the honest beast acknowledges by a clambering flounder up the bank, making the descent on his head on the field side that he nearly executed before. The Hatter’s legs perform a sort of wands of a mill evolution.

  “Not hurt, I hope!” holloas the Earl, who with Miss de Glancey now lands a little above, a
nd seeing the Hatter rise and shake himself he canters on, giving Miss de Glancey a touch on the elbow, and saying with a knowing look, “That’s capital! get rid of him, leggings and all!”

  His lordship having now seen the last of his tormentors, has time to look about him a little.

  “Been a monstrous fine run,” observes he to the lady, as they canter together behind the pace-slackening pack.

  “Monstrous,” replies the lady, who sees no fun in it at all.

  “How long has it been?” asks his lordship of Swan, who now shows to the front as a whip-aspiring huntsman is wont to do.

  “An hour all but five minutes, my lord,” replies the magnifier, looking at his watch. “No — no — an hour ‘zactly, my lord,” adds he, trotting on — restoring his watch to his fob as he goes.

  “An hour best pace with but one slight check — can’t have come less than twelve miles,” observes his lordship, thinking it over.

  “Indeed,” replied Miss de Glancey, wishing it was done.

  “Grand sport fox-hunting, isn’t it?” asked his lordship, edging close up to her.

  “Charming!” replied Miss de Glancey, feeling her failing frizette.

  The effervescence of the thing is now about over, and the hounds are reduced to a very plodding pains-taking pace. The day has changed for the worse, and heavy clouds are gathering overhead. Still there is a good holding scent, and as the old saying is, a fox so pressed must stop at last, the few remaining sportsmen begin speculating on his probable destination, one backing him for Cauldwell rocks, another for Fulford woods, a third for the Hawkhurst Hills.

  “‘Awk’urst ‘ills for a sovereign!” now cries Dicky, hustling his horse, as, having steered the nearly mute pack along Sandy-well banks, Challenger and Sparkler strike a scent on the track leading up to Sorryfold Moor, and go away at an improving pace.

  “‘Awk’urst ‘ills for a fi’-pun note!” adds he, as the rest of the pack score to cry.

  “Going to have rine!” now observes he, as a heavy drop beats upon his up-turned nose. At the same instant a duplicate drop falls upon Miss de Glancey’s fair cheek, causing her to wish herself anywhere but where she was.

  Another, and another, and another, follow in quick succession, while the dark, dreary moor offers nothing but the inhospitable freedom of space. The cold wind cuts through her, making her shudder for the result. “He’s for the hills!” exclaims Gameboy Green, still struggling on with a somewhat worse-for-wear looking steed.

  “He’s for the hills!” repeats he, pointing to a frowning line in the misty distance.

  At the same instant his horse puts his foot in a stone-hole, and Gameboy and he measure their lengths on the moor.

  “That comes of star-gazing,” observed his lordship, turning his coat-collar up about his ears. “That comes of star-gazing,” repeats he, eyeing the loose horse scampering the wrong way.

  “We’ll see no more of him,” observed Miss de Glancey, wishing she was as well out of it as Green.

  “Not likely, I think,” replied his lordship, seeing the evasive rush the horse gave, as Speed, who was coming up with some tail hounds, tried to catch him.

  The heath-brushing fox leaves a scent that fills the painfully still atmosphere with the melody of the hounds, mingled with the co-beck — co-beck — co-beck of the startled grouse. There is a solemn calm that portends a coming storm. To Miss de Clancey, for whom the music of the hounds has no charms, and the fast-gathering clouds have great danger, the situation is peculiarly distressing. She would stop if she durst, but on the middle of a dreary moor how dare she.

  An ominous gusty wind, followed by a vivid flash of lightning and a piercing scream from Miss de Glancey, now startled the Earl’s meditations.

  “Lightning!” exclaimed his lordship, turning short round to her assistance. “Lightning in the month of November — never heard of such a thing!”

  But ere his lordship gets to Miss de Glancey’s horse, a most terrific clap of thunder burst right over head, shaking the earth to the very centre, silencing the startled hounds, and satisfying his lordship that it was lightning.

  Another flash, more vivid if possible than the first, followed by another pealing crash of thunder, more terrific than before, calls all hands to a hurried council of war on the subject of shelter.

  “We must make for the Punch-bowl at Rockbeer,” exclaims General Boggledike, flourishing his horn in an ambiguous sort of way, for he wasn’t quite sure he could find it.

  “You know the Punch-bowl at Rockbeer!” shouts he to Harry Swan, anxious to have some one on whom to lay the blame if he went wrong.

  “I know it when I’m there,” replied Swan, who didn’t consider it part of his duty to make imaginary runs to ground for his lordship.

  “Know it when you’re there, man,” retorted Dicky in disgust; “why any —— — —” the remainder of his sentence being lost in a tremendously illuminating flash of lightning, followed by a long cannonading, reverberating roll of thunder.

  Poor Miss de Glancey was ready to sink into the earth.

  “Elope, hounds! elope!” cried Dicky, getting his horse short by the head, and spurring him into a brisk trot. “Elope, hounds! elope!” repeated he, setting off on a speculative cast, for he saw it was no time for dallying.

  And now,

  “From cloud to cloud the rending lightnings rage;

  Till in the furious elemental war

  Dissolved, the whole precipitated mass,

  Unbroken floods and solid torrents pour.”

  Luckily for Dicky, an unusually vivid flash of lightning so lit up the landscape as to show the clump of large elms at the entrance to Rockbeer; and taking his bearings, he went swish swash, squirt spurt, swish swash, squirt spurt, through the spongy, half land, half water moor, at as good a trot as he could raise. The lately ardent, pressing hounds follow on in long-drawn file, looking anything but large or formidable. The frightened horses tucked in their tails, and looked fifty per cent. worse for the suppression. The hard, driving rain beats downways, and sideways, and frontways, and backways — all ways at once. The horses know not which way to duck, to evade the storm. In less than a minute Miss de Glancey is as drenched as if she had taken a shower-bath. The smart hat and feathers are annihilated; the dubious frizette falls out, down comes the hair; the bella-donna-inspired radiance of her eyes is quenched; the Crinoline and wadding dissolve like ice before the fire; and ere the love-cured Earl lifts her off her horse at the Punch-bowl at Rockbeer, she has no more shape or figure than an icicle. Indeed she very much resembles one, for the cold sleet, freezing as it fell, has encrusted her in a rich coat of ice lace, causing her saturated garments to cling to her with the utmost pertinacity. A more complete wreck of a belle was, perhaps, never seen.

  “What an object!” inwardly ejaculated she, as Mrs. Hetherington, the landlady, brought a snivelling mould candle into the cheerless, fireless little inn-parlour, and she caught a glimpse of herself in the — at best — most unbecoming mirror. What would she have given to have turned back!

  And as his lordship hurried up stairs in his water-logged boots, he said to himself, with a nervous swing of his arm, “I was right! — women have no business out hunting.” And the Binks chance improved amazingly.

  The further denouement of this perishing day will be gleaned from the following letters.

  CHAPTER XIV. THE PRINGLE CORRESPONDENCE.

  MR WILLIAM TO HIS MAMMA.

  “TANTIVY CASTLE, NOVEMBER.

  “My dearest Mamma,

  “Though I wrote to you only the other day, I take up my pen, stiff and sore as I am and scarcely able to sit, to tell you of my first day’s hunt, which, I assure you, was anything but enjoyable. In fact, at this moment I feel just as if I had been thumped by half the pugilists in London and severely kicked at the end. To my fancy, hunting is about the most curious, unreasonable amusement that ever was invented. The first fox was well enough, running backwards and forwards in an agreeable manner,
though they all abused him and called him a cowardly beggar, though to my mind it was far pluckier to do what he did, with fifty great dogs after him, than to fly like a thief as the next one did. Indeed I saw all the first run without the slightest inconvenience or exertion, for a very agreeable gentleman, called Major Hammerton, himself an old keeper of hounds, led me about and showed me the country.

  “I don’t mean to say that he led my horse, but he showed me the way to go, so as to avoid the jumps, and pointed out the places where I could get a peep of the fox. I saw him frequently. The Major, who was extremely polite, asked me to go and stay with him after I leave here, and I wouldn’t mind going if it wasn’t for the hounds, which, however, he says are quite as fine as his lordship’s, without being so furiously and inconveniently fast. For my part, however, I don’t see the use of hunting an animal that you can shoot, as they do in France. It seems a monstrous waste of exertion. If they were all as sore as I am this morning, I’m sure they wouldn’t try it again in a hurry. I really think racing, where you pay people for doing the dangerous for you, is much better fun, and prettier too, for you can choose any lively colour you like for your jacket, instead of having to stick to scarlet or dark clothes.

  “But I will tell you about fox No. 2. I was riding with a very pretty young lady, Miss de Glancey, whom the Earl had just introduced me to, when all of a sudden everybody seemed to be seized with an uncontrollable galloping mania, and set off as hard as ever their horses could lay legs to the ground. My horse, who they said was a perfect hunter, but who, I should say, was a perfect brute, partook of the prevailing epidemic, and, though he had gone quite quietly enough before, now seized the bit between his teeth, and plunged and reared as though he would either knock my teeth down my throat, or come back over upon me. ‘Drop your hand!’ cried one. ‘Ease his head!’ cried another, and what was the consequence? He ran away with me and, dashing through a flock of turkeys, nearly capsized an old sow.

  “Then the people, who had been so civil before, all seemed to be seized with the rudes. It was nothing but ‘g-u-u-r along, sir! g-u-u-r along! Hang it! don’t you see the hounds are running!’ just as if I had made them run, or as if I could stop them. My good friend, the Major, seemed to be as excited as any body: indeed, the only cool person was Miss de Glancey, who cantered away in a most unconcerned manner. I am sorry to say she came in for a desperate ducking. It seems that after I had had as much as I wanted, and pulled up to come home, they encountered a most terrific thunder-storm in crossing some outlandish moor, and as his lordship, who didn’t get home till long after dark, said she all at once became a dissolving view, and went away to nothing. Mrs. Moffatt, who is stout and would not easily dissolve, seemed amazingly tickled with the joke, and said she supposed she would look like a Mermaid — which his lordship said was exactly the case. When the first roll of thunder was heard here, the Earl’s carriage and four was ordered out, with dry things, to go in quest of him; but they tried two of his houses of call before they fell in with him. It then had to return to take the Mermaid to her home, who had to borrow the publican’s wife’s Sunday clothes to travel in.